Monthly Archives: March 2015

Slovakia: ‘No NATO bases in Slovakia’ – protesters gather outside Bratislava’s US embassy – Video

Posted on by


Slovakia: #39;No NATO bases in Slovakia #39; - protesters gather outside Bratislava #39;s US embassy
Around 500 protesters gathered for an anti-NATO protest in Bratislava on Thursday. The crowds were addressed by former Prime Minister Jan Carnogursky, who said he "didn #39;t want NATO bases in...

By: RuptlyTV

View post:

Slovakia: 'No NATO bases in Slovakia' - protesters gather outside Bratislava's US embassy - Video

NATO Warns Russia: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia has to respect borders – Video

Posted on by


NATO Warns Russia: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia has to respect borders
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday NATO did not want a confrontation with Russia. Check out our website: http://uatoday.tv Facebook: https://facebook.com/uatodaytv Twitter:...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

Go here to read the rest:

NATO Warns Russia: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Russia has to respect borders - Video

Nato head tells David Cameron: We are counting on your leadership

Posted on by

We appreciate the leadership that the UK shows in the Alliance, and we count on leadership also in the future, Mr Stoltenberg said.

In the same press release, Nato said he would be meeting Michael Fallon to ensure important decisions from the Wales summit last year were being implemented.

A central outcome of the summit was a promise for all European allies to recommit to spending 2 per cent of their GDP on defence a long-standing obligation.

At the time the Prime Minister called on those countries below the mark to meet the obligation within a decade and signed a pledge saying Britain would aim to continue to hit the 2 per cent mark.

In a separate development, Mr Cameron appeared to admit the difficulty in justifying why a government should protect aid spending during austerity while not ring-fencing defence.

Pushed by the Financial Times on how the Prime Minister could say defence was more about deployability of forces than raw spending numbers while enshrining legal aid spending in law, Mr Cameron reportedly said: Its a fair point.

No 10 spokesperson said of the meeting between Mr Cameron and Mr Stoltenberg: The Prime Minister explained that the UK would continue to meet the 2 per cent target this financial year and next, but decisions beyond this would be made in the next Spending Review.

The Secretary General said he appreciated the UKs leadership within the Alliance and that the Government was using its defence spending to focus on investment in new capabilities."

Last month two former Nato heads warned that Mr Cameron will embolden Mr Putin and Islamic terrorists if he reneges on a commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who left the post as Nato general secretary last year, and his predecessor Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said cutting defence after the election would strength Britains enemies.

Read the rest here:

Nato head tells David Cameron: We are counting on your leadership

Nato chief in warning over Russian wargames

Posted on by

David Cameron and Jens Stoltenberg meet at 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex

Natos secretary general has warned that increasing numbers of Russian wargames, with no prior warning, combined with the withering of regular military communications channels between the alliance and Moscow, raises the danger of misunderstandings between the two sides escalating rapidly.

Jens Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, voiced his concern a few days after Russia pulled out of a joint forum with Nato countries for discussing conventional arms control in Europe.

Since the Russian intervention in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, dialogue through the Nato Russia council, set up after the cold war, has been severely reduced, at a time of high tension and a faster tempo of military exercises by each side near to mutual borders.

There are more and more snap exercises with no prior notification, Stoltenberg told the Guardian during a visit to London. It is important we keep the channels for military communication open to have as much transparency as possible to avoid misunderstandings and to make sure that incidents dont spiral and get out of control.

Every nation has the right to conduct exercises, as long as they do it within their international obligations, the secretary general said. But the recent Russian practice of calling snap exercises is of serious concern. Sudden, unpredictable and surprise military maneuvers contribute to instability.

Russia has conducted about a dozen snap exercises over the past two years. Russias takeover of Crimea was done under the guise of a snap exercise. Nato has not conducted snap exercises since the end of the cold war.

Russia has dramatically increased the number of military flights over the Baltic region, leading to Natos stepping up air patrols over the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. On Thursday, it was reported that Russia had launched a new live fire wargame involving the Baltic fleet and paratroopers.

The increased number of snap exercises by the Russians, the increased military presence of Russian troops along Nato borders, underlines the importance of having contact and transparency and predictability.

Stoltenberg said: We are doing what we can to make sure thats the case, but their withdrawal from the (conventional forces in Europe) is part of a broader picture. Part of the message we convey in our political dialogue is we would like to have more transparency and more predictability.

Follow this link:

Nato chief in warning over Russian wargames

Lawsuit Challenges NSA Internet Dragnets

Posted on by

By John P. Mello Jr. 03/13/15 11:02 AM PT

The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this week filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the National Security Agency from indiscriminately snooping on United States Internet traffic.

Using a technique called "upstream" surveillance, the NSA does a spinal tap of the Internet's U.S. backbone, which carries the communications of millions of Americans, the ACLU explained in its complaint filed with a federal district court in Maryland.

"In the course of this surveillance, the NSA is seizing Americans' communications en masse while they are in transit," the complaint alleges, "and it is searching the contents of substantially all international text-based communications -- and many domestic communications as well -- for tens of thousands of search terms."

That kind of surveillance violates federal law, the First and Fourth Amendments and Article III of the Constitution, maintained the ACLU, which is representing in the lawsuit the Wikimedia Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, PEN American Center, the Global Fund for Women, The Nation magazine, The Rutherford Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America.

This lawsuit is similar to one filed in the past involving NSA Director James R. Clapper and Amnesty International. That case was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Backers of the latest lawsuit, however, believe their case has stronger legs than the previous litigation.

"Thanks to the Snowden disclosures and government acknowledgments over the last 18 months, we now know more about government surveillance than we did in Clapper v. Amnesty," explained Ashley Gorski, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project.

"That, for us, makes all the difference," she told the E-Commerce Times, "and we think that will make a difference in court as well."

In the Amnesty case, the Supreme Court ruled that the parties bringing the lawsuit lacked standing -- that is, they couldn't prove they were harmed by the behavior alleged in their complaint. The reason they couldn't prove harm was that they didn't know enough about what the NSA was doing to make the connection between harm and behavior.

"Prior to the Snowden revelations and the government acknowledgments, the public did not know anything at all about upstream surveillance -- least of all that the NSA was copying entire streams of Internet traffic and searching through them for information about its targets," Gorski said.

See the original post:

Lawsuit Challenges NSA Internet Dragnets

Posted in NSA

Cato Surveillance Conference Keynote Speaker Rep. Thomas Massie – Video

Posted on by


Cato Surveillance Conference Keynote Speaker Rep. Thomas Massie
Follow the link to watch the full event: http://www.cato.org/events/2014-cato-institute-surveillance-conference How should these tracking technologies be regulated by the Fourth Amendment...

By: catoinstitutevideo

Read the original post:

Cato Surveillance Conference Keynote Speaker Rep. Thomas Massie - Video

Are CTA Bag Checks Against Our Fourth Amendment Rights?

Posted on by

After four months of random bag checks at more than 40 CTA stations, the results are in: Officers checked 2,600 bags, found zero explosives and made only one arrest. The bag-check initiative, which began Nov. 3 and had full support of Mayor Emmanuel, is funded by a grant from the Transportation Security Administration and currently has no end date.

The CTA announced it has not received any complaints from the public regarding the bag checks. But what about the one arrest made? Turns out, protestor Scott Davis, 43, told the RedEye he was acting in protest of the violation of his Fourth Amendment rights which can be registered as a very public complaint, CTA by refusing to have his bag checked and then attempting to board a Brown Line train. Davis was charged with criminal trespass to state land and disorderly conduct. According to policy, riders are able to refuse bag checks but must leave the CTA station or face arrest. However, refusing a bag check does not stop someone from entering the same station via another entrance, or boarding at a different stop.

So, are the bag checks actually against our Fourth Amendment rights?

According to MacWade vs. Kelly a Second Circuit Court ruling in 2006 no. The case was brought by the ACLU against the Commissioner of the New York City Police Department and the City of New York after subway bag checks were enacted in 2005, which were in response to the Madrid and London subway bombings of 2004 and 2005. The ruling sets precedent for five requirements that must be met for these programs to be deemed constitutional, including:

1. Passengers receive notice of the searches and may decline to be searched so long as they leave the subway. 2. Police search only those containers capable of concealing explosives. 3. A typical search lasts only for a matter of seconds. 4. Uniformed personnel conduct the searches out in the open, which reduces the fear and stigma that removal to a hidden area can cause. 5. Police exercise no discretion in selecting whom to search, but rather employ a formula that ensures they do not arbitrarily exercise their authority.

While Mayor Emanuel has defended the measures in Chicago for providing public security while protecting privacy, critics contend that the measure is simply for show afterall, there are 145 CTA stations and thousands of riders passing through them each day. Others insist that the bag checks could be used to target young, male minorities. It's yet to be seen whether the measure has yielded more harm than good.

Read this article:

Are CTA Bag Checks Against Our Fourth Amendment Rights?

Vietnam War Symposium: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 – Video

Posted on by


Vietnam War Symposium: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967
A March 10 symposium on the Vietnam War was held at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt, based on "They Marched Into Sunlight," a book by David Maraniss. Maraniss, Distinguished Visiting...

By: Vanderbilt University

View post:

Vietnam War Symposium: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 - Video